The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Fight for Freedom and Related Writing v. 10 (The Collected Works of Langston Hughes): Vol 10 - Hardcover

Langston Hughes

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826213715 ISBN 13: 9780826213716

Publisher: University of Missouri Press, 2001

Synopsis

Nearing the end of a distinguished literary career that spanned nearly fifty years, Langston Hughes took on the daunting task of writing the official history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Beginning with the social, political, and economic contexts that led to the founding of the NAACP in 1909 and ending with a summary of its targeted goals for 1963, Hughes attempted to write a history that would be comprehensive in scope and singular in its purpose of highlighting the ways in which the Association had a direct and positive impact on racial justice in the United States. Long before the publication of Fight for Freedom, Hughes had begun writing nonfictional, journalistic prose about these same issues as a regular columnist for the nation's most influential African American publications, including the Chicago Defender and Crisis. A selection of these popular columns and other essays - which reveal the extent to which Hughes's unique, varied, and sometimes Blues-tinged narrative voice shifted in tone over the course of his extensive career - is included in this volume. Hughes intersperses historical facts with compelling anecdotes that often frame subtly ironic commentaries on various themes. The result is history that provides a lens through which to view Hughes's attitudes in the early 1960s toward the ways the NAACP addressed the vital social, cultural, political, and economic issues central to its agenda.

About this title

About the Author

About the Editor
Christopher C. De Santis is Assistant Professor of American and African American Literature at Illinois State University in Normal. He is the editor of Langston Hughes and the Chicago Defender: Essays on Race, Politics, and Culture, 1942-62.

About the Author
Langston Hughes was one of the most influential and prolific writers of the twentieth century.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Missouri Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826213715
• ISBN 13: 9780826213716
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296
• Editor: Christopher C. De Santis